investigating attention--those that do not demand and suggest
thoughts are not worth a thought; but this picture, now its every
part, tint, and sentiment, have long been intimately known to me.
I see, at a glance, its entire subject--ay, at a glance, too, see
the effect which a casual gleam of light has just thrown over it.
Is it not probable, then, that our dreams may be equally
suggestive, in as short a space of time? Dreams that have not some
connexion, something of a continuity of events, however wild, are
not retained by the memory. Most persons would find it much more
difficult to learn to repeat the words in a dictionary, than a
page of poetry of equal length; and many dreams are probably
framed of very unconnected materials. In falling asleep, I have
often been conscious of the dissevering of my thoughts--like a
regiment dismissed from parade, they seemed to straggle away "in
most admired disorder;" but these scattered bands muster together
again in our sleep; and, as these have all been levied from the
impressions, cogitations, hopes, fears, and affections, of our
waking hours, however strangely they may re-combine, if they do
combine with sufficient continuity to be remembered, the form
presented, however wild, will always be found, on a fair analysis,
to be characteristic of the dreamer. They are his own thoughts
oddly joined, like freshwater Polyps, which may be divided, and
then stuck again together, so as to form chains, or any other
strange forms, across the globe of water in which they may be
exhibited. In Devonshire, the peasantry have a good term to
express that wandering of thought, and imperfect dreaming, which
is common in some states of disease.--"Oh, sir, he has been lying
pretty still; but he has been _roading_ all night." By this, they
mean, that the patient, in imperfect sleep, has been muttering
half-connected sentences; and the word, _roading_, is taken from
the mode in which they catch woodcocks. At the last gleam of
evening, the woodcocks rise from their shelter in the woods, and
wind their way to the open vistas, which lead to the adjacent
meadows, where they go to feed during the night; and they return
to their covert, through the same vistas, with the first beam of
morning. At the end of these vistas, which they call 'cock-roads,'
the woodcock